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Matt Slaine is an investor who grew up on Wall Street. In pursuit of his next move (and an intent to own), he decided to purchase a company, instead of starting one.

What followed was a journey of identifying his perfect candidate (Progressive Business Media, a B2B media and communications company in the home furnishings and gift space,), buying it in 2012 – and, (true to style) investing in the business to ensure it could one day thrive without him.

Find out how Slaine used his wisdom from Wall Street to turn Progressive Business Media into a 100-employee company that would successfully sell through an unsolicited acquisition offer.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

The best way to find a business to buy

How to build up the value of your business over time

Slaine’s best advice for making your business less dependent on you

How you can thrive in a “dying” industry

Matt Slaine invested the time to find the perfect company to buy – ultimately preparing him for an eventual exit since he did the leg work on who his strategic buyer could be. The Short List Builder is module 11 The Value Builder System™ and helps you understand who your strategic buyers could be – whether you’re ready to sell now or not. Get started for free right now by completing Module 1.

About our guest

In 2013 Slaine and investors acquired a group of print business to business publications in the furniture, gift, and home decor industries. Over the following years a company called Progressive Business Media was born and flourished as it pursued monetization opportunities and a culture of team excellence. In Q4 of 2018 the Company was acquired in an all cash transaction by GateHouse Media's BridgeTower division.

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Invitation to get your Value Builder Score Chapter that covers the basic framework of building to sell Access to an 8-part video series on the drivers of company value 8 drivers of company value cheat sheet Weekly Built to Sell Radio podcast episodes

About Built to Sell Radio

Our weekly podcast is an extension of John Warrillow’s book Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You. Forbes has ranked Built to Sell Radio as one of the top podcasts for business owners and we’ve had almost 600,000 downloads of the show.

We have interviewed everyone from Michael Gerber (author of The E-Myth) to Bo Burlingham (author of Small Giants and Inc. Magazine Editor-at-Large) to Rod Drury (founder of Xero).

Our host

John Warrillow has been helping business owners improve the value of their company for over 20 years.

As founder of The Value Builder System™, his mission is to level the playing field for business owners as they approach their exit. Over 47,000 business owners have taken the Value Builder Questionnaire with the support of accountants who champion the system as Certified Value Builders™ across the globe. Owners are statistically-proven to improve company value by up to 71% through the system.

John’s best-selling book, Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, was recognized by both Fortune and Inc. Magazine as one of the best business books of 2011 and has been translated into four languages. In 2015, John wrote another best-selling book: The Automatic Customer: Creating A Subscription Business In Any Industry.